


Pointed Up (At The Red Sun)

by mihrsuri



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Backstory, Charn, End of the World, Gen, Magic, Power of Words, Redemption, Sibling Love, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-13
Updated: 2018-08-13
Packaged: 2019-06-26 20:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15670302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mihrsuri/pseuds/mihrsuri
Summary: Kasia has never wanted to be kind at all. A look at Charn, just before the end.





	Pointed Up (At The Red Sun)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Syrena_of_the_lake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrena_of_the_lake/gifts).
  * Inspired by [In Word and Deed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7998928) by [Syrena_of_the_lake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrena_of_the_lake/pseuds/Syrena_of_the_lake). 



Kasia had known, almost from the first that she could not afford to be kind. You did not survive, as daughter of a Sorceress by being anything but what she wished and what her mother wished was not kindness. 

Kasia did not think she was kind, but she had trouble not being thought so. She always had. 

"Too much of your father" Crix had said, the first time she had ordered Kasia beaten but she had admired that Kasia had not cried, had not screamed even when Crix had branded her playmate and taken her for sacrifice. It would have made it worse if I had protested, Kasia thought, her thoughts flavoured with contempt for her mother who so often saw so little. She never did another act of charity again. Not even where it could not be seen. It just made things worse so Kasia made herself as hard and bright as she could.

Her and Nethyrs father had been kind and it had gotten him nowhere, is what Kasia thinks. My children, my daughters will have no such weakness in them - they will be like my sisters entirely. And so she had made herself into the perfect eldest daughter of Crix, sworn to Cennis who would bathe the world in the blood of her rage. 

Privately....Kasia did not give herself the luxury of having private thoughts about such things anymore. That was to be left behind with her childhood, with her sentimental attachments (such as they were) and with her memories of her father. But she could not, despite herself quite leave Nethyrs behind. She told herself that her twin was useful, though - he had a talent for finding Words despite having much less magic than her and their sisters and Kasia was in need of new words. It was simply usefulness, nothing more. 

"You are a worthy heir" her mother says and Kasia tries to summon some emotion of triumph and eventually tells herself that she does feel it. She has everything that a Sorceress of Charn should want, after all. 

-

She asks her brother for a word and they fall dangerously into what is almost the old rhythm of their childhood, when she asks for a spell so she can see Telmut (who she will leave for Julyn - they deserve each other) truly and he gives it to her only for the price of sharing a secret. Kasia tells herself again, that she cannot afford Nethyr. But she does not plan to kill him. 

(Not yet, is what she tells herself, not until I have gotten all the use out of him I can. That is the only safe thing to feel. It has always been the only safe thing). 

(She does not tell their mother that she has heard him muttering in his nightmares)

Kasia is soft, when her brother is summoned to visit the Queen she is sworn to, she knows that and thank the skies Senfur did not notice, too lost in her resentment that their brother was the one summoned and not her to take advantage. 

-

She cries, silently for the first time in years when Nethyr tells her what the Queen wanted. Perhaps he had no choice, but he had trusted her. They had trusted each other, as they had not for a long time, not since their father had been killed. Not since Kasia's softness had had her playmate sent to the sacrificial altar. 

Please skies, she says to herself, let me be hard enough for what is to come. 

-

Kasia becomes a traitor, because of course she does. There are times when she wonders if Charn is even worth saving, if the weight of her brothers secret should simply just die with the red sun. And then he tells her his other dreams - the dreams of dead worlds, of worlds dying before they draw breath and now, now she has to do this. Sometimes she hates herself for it, for not being able to think of saving herself, for not being a true daughter of Charn. 

She is punished, for missing a strike that would have destroyed a hospital and she feels a vicious triumph as she is beaten. You have no idea, Kasia thinks at both the warring Queens, you have no idea what I have planned, what I have done. 

Perhaps her mother would be proud of her after all. Or perhaps her brother was his mothers true heir after all - for all his pride and ambitions Nethyr had the world, had many worlds in his hands. And yet, Kasia thinks, he has chosen not to rule it and so have I and she laughs because of course their mother would not be proud of them. 

When she makes the decision to destroy her world and all who live in it Kasia does not think her mother would be proud. She does not think anyone would be proud of her - she is not proud of herself. I want to live, she thinks - I want to live and rise high and be the vicious heiress to a Sorceress but I cannot. I cannot. She wants to rip half of her blood out of herself, just as she did when her father left her, when she could not help but care about Nethyr, about her childhood friend, about the worlds that these two Queens of Blood and Ice would destroy, that Charn could destroy. 

"You shall conquer other worlds in time" Kasia lies to Queen Jadis without thought but then perhaps it is true. Perhaps Kasia has done nothing at all but to enable more destruction but she has set herself upon this course and she will see it through. She can do nothing less. 

-  
The last thought of Kasia, daughter of a sorceress of Charn is of red. The first thought of Kasia after, is of green, of her brother and the feel of their fathers arms and his voice. 

"You have done so well, my little cat. So well" 

I can be kind here is her second thought.


End file.
